I had a studentâ??s complete attention. This is a rare prize for a professor, never mind for a dean standing at center court. I had been invited to the varsity field house to deliver an invocation address on the meaning of a college education and was scheduled to speak in the middle of a pep rally. My remarks were sandwiched between a flash-mob dance and the debut of the school mascot.
After proving my bona fides by leading them in the school cheer, I congratulated the members of the incoming class of the University of St. Michaelâ??s College in the University of Toronto on choosing to join an avowedly Roman Catholic liberal-arts college thatâ??s part of a proudly secular public-research university. This double affiliation will not be easy for my students â?? who include both practicing and nonpracticing Catholics, students of other faiths, and "nones," an especially ironic homonym at a Catholic college â?? but it creates a great opportunity to develop fresh models of dialogue, even integration, in a world riven by endless conflicts between the sacred and the secular.
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